My Comments

Freebox Révolution ready for IPv6

It is taking a long time for most people to become aware of IPv6 in their personal computing environment. This is although most regular and mobile operating systems provide for dual-stack and routed IPv6 support, an increasing amount of NAS units, business-grade printers and premium routers are offering dual-stack IPv6 operation and more Websites and Web hosts are moving towards IPv6 dual-stack operation.

It is due to a lot of ISPs not enabling this functionality with most residential and small-business Internet-service offerings and most popularly-priced or carrier-supplied routers not being made “ready for IPv6”. France has taken a few steps already in the IPv6 direction with the likes of Freebox Révolution being ready for this technology.

But they are taking further steps by using the might of the government’s regulatory authority to push for IPv6 to be a standard for Internet service offered there. This has been driven by the reduced pool of public IPv4 IP addresses being available and is a similar step to their switch from analogue to digital TV broadcasting.

It may be the first government-level initiative to bring through the IPv6 technology to the home network but may not be the last. I also see that the government-based effort may be best turned towards promoting the use of IPv6 by French Internet users rather than by legislating it as a service standard. This is because of the frequent product-updating culture that is taking place with the French carriers to assure consumers have a service worth staying on for especially in a competitive market like France.